At Franklin forum, legislators gauge health of Mass. manufacturing

Saturday

Jan 25, 2014 at 12:01 AM

By Matt TotaDaily News Staff

FRANKLIN — The Legislature’s bipartisan Manufacturing Caucus has set out to forge bonds among vocational-technical high schools, community colleges, universities and manufacturing companies to develop a pipeline of trained workers.Established last October, the Manufacturing Caucus, co-chaired by state Rep. John Fernandes, D-Milford, and state Sen. Richard Moore, D-Uxbridge, includes 50 lawmakers aiming to analyze and address the problems facing the industry."The greatest public policy we have going is to connect our vocational schools, our community colleges and our manufactures to come up with curriculum and training that is based in local manufacturing needs," said Fernandes, speaking Friday morning at Tri-County Regional Vocational Technical High School.During a manufacturing roundtable, he and state Rep. Jeffrey Roy, D-Franklin, began the process of eliciting feedback from leaders in the industry on what they’ll need to improve and build those connections. Fourteen manufacturers, a fraction of the more than 7,000 companies in the state, attended, along with other lawmakers, public officials and Tri-County administrators.Tri-County cut its manufacturing program in 2002 in response to a decline in interest, closing its machine shop, said Superintendent Stephen Dockray. But, he said, voc-tech schools are prepared to provide a solution to the workforce shortage as long as they can get the right equipment."We need to partner with many of you to purchase the machinery to train our students in manufacturing," Dockray said. "But it’s expensive."There are grant programs available to help the school purchase the equipment that require in-kind contributions, he said."We need to partner with some of you to get the maximum amount that we can get," he said.Hopkinton-based EMC Corp. is one manufacturer that has taken advantage of partnerships with academic institutions, said Tom Andrellos, the vice president of manufacturing/plant management at EMC's site in Franklin.Andrellos said the company collaborates with voc-tech schools and colleges to "invest in its future.""Many of our technicians, close to 90 percent, have either an associate’s degree or bachelor’s degree that we’ve helped them attain," he said.Roy said that the shortage in skilled labor is one of the biggest problems threatening the industry."We know right now that there are 100,000 good paying jobs around the commonwealth that we can’t fill because we don’t have workers with the training that is necessary for the skill that the jobs require," he said.Feeding into the skills gap issue, Roy said, is both a false perception that the industry is dying — in fact, it’s the sixth largest employment sector in Massachusetts — and a less-than-flattering view of manufacturing that simply does not match up with today’s reality."The manufacturing of today involves expertise and training in advanced technology, programming and streamlined production, and we need to train people to work in this vital sector," he said. "What were once dark, gritty factories are now high-tech, innovative facilities that provide good-paying jobs to skilled and educated employees."The Patrick administration has already acknowledged those challenges, said Eric Nakajima, assistant secretary for innovation police at the state Executive Office of Housing and Economic Development.Four years ago, Nakajima said, the state recognized that the manufacturing industry was on the rise."Everywhere we went, we heard from manufacturers that they were competitive and a lot of the hollowing out you’d seen before had ended," he said. "The question then was, ‘What are the priorities?’ What are the needs?"The responses were that the careers in the industry need to be promoted and the workforce rebuilt.In 2012, Nakajima said, MassDevelopment began a program called "AMP it up!" that’s solely focused on marketing manufacturing as a desirable field.Also, he said, the Legislature in the last two years has had funds available for a manufacturing program that identifies "immediate training needs so that we can train workers, whether they’re adults or they’re coming out of local schools, and then get them jobs through a coalition of local employers."Gov. Deval Patrick in his final state budget plan has recommended continued funding for that program, Nakajima said, to the tune of $1.8 million.Matt Tota can be reached at 508-634-7521 or mtota@wickedlocal.com.

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